Festo Kivengere was a young Ugandan schoolteacher when he encountered Jesus during the East African Revival in 1936. A friend burst into his room breathlessly declaring, "Festo! Three hours ago Jesus became a living reality to me. I know my sins are forgiven!" The friend then asked Festo's forgiveness for specific wrongs and challenged him: "Where are you?"
A Desperate Prayer Changes Everything
Festo went home under tremendous conviction. His hands shook too much to light his pipe. Though he didn't know what to say, he cried out to God: "God, if you happen to be there, as my friends say you are, here is my life. Thoroughly empty, very much in trouble, and full of guilt."
That prayer transformed everything. Festo became a pastor and eventually the Anglican Bishop of Kigezi. But his greatest test came during Idi Amin's reign of terror, when as many as 300,000 Ugandans were killed.
Persecution Under Idi Amin's Reign
In February 1977, Amin arrested and murdered Archbishop Janani Luwum, Festo's close friend. Kivengere was among the last to see Luwum alive, waiting outside the interrogation building until guards forced him to leave at gunpoint.
Fleeing Uganda on foot, Festo wrestled with his heart. "I had to face my own attitude towards Amin and his agents," he wrote. "The Holy Spirit showed me that I was getting hard in my spirit, and that my hardness and bitterness could only bring spiritual loss."
Radical Forgiveness Testimony Born
A Good Friday sermon on Christ's words of forgiveness broke him. That year, he published "I Love Idi Amin." The world was stunned.
"We love President Idi Amin," he wrote. "We owe him the debt of love, for he is one of those for whom Christ shed His precious blood. As long as he is still alive, he is still redeemable."
When asked how he could love a mass murderer, Festo replied simply: "On the cross, Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' As evil as Idi Amin is, how can I do less toward him?"
Legacy of Love and Reconciliation
After Amin's fall, Kivengere returned to Uganda, preaching love, forgiveness, and reconciliation to his bruised nation until his death in 1988. He became known as "the Billy Graham of Africa."
